Peter Jackson Wants to Make You Care About Dystopias Again

The Lord of the Rings director is joining an adaptation of Mortal Engines.

Peter Jackson has just announced his new project—and it doesn’t include wizards, hobbits, elves, or any of the other fantastical beings found in Middle Earth. Though the director has been firmly ensconced in Tolkien world for the last 15 years or so, he’s running far, far away from Gandalf and co. for his newest project—and diving straight into the arms of an incredibly distant future.

On Facebook, Jackson announced he would be producing an upcoming adaptation of Mortal Engines, as well as co-writing the script with Lord of the Rings collaborators Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens. Christian Rivers, a longtime colleague of Jackson’s, will make his directorial debut.

Mortal Engines is the first of a four-part Philip Reeve series (ah, can you smell the franchise brewing?) set in a dystopian London thousands of years in the future. “The moment we read these novels, we knew what exciting movies they’d make,” Jackson says. “I literally can’t wait to see them!”

Peter Jackson.

By Frazer Harrison/Getty Images.

Perhaps Jackson will be the one to get audiences excited about dystopian films again—at least where teen audiences are concerned. After the boom of The Hunger Games, dystopian adaptations of Y.A. books like the Divergent series and Ender’s Game haven’t quite connected with viewers the same way. (And some just aren’t that good, critically speaking.) The genre seems as though it’s taking its last, shuddering breaths in the wake of Katniss Everdeen’s exit (itself met with disappointing box office); the Divergent series has been a particularly acute example of the fall of Y.A. dystopia, with its last installment, Ascendant, headed for the small screen instead of a juicy theatrical release.

Maybe Mortal Engines will be able to steer clear of that kind of fate, since the source material isn’t a Y.A. novel. Plus, Jackson has been known to pack a punch or two at the box office. Sometimes the best defense really is a good offense.

Get Vanity Fair’s Cocktail Hour.It’s our essential daily brief on culture, the news, and more. And it’s on the house.